We recently connected with For The Culture and have shared our conversation below.
For The Culture, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
The story behind our mission came about by attending varying educational conferences where the keynote speaker would address literacy challenges with our community of black and brown students. However, the oxymoron is that the speaker was always white. Being that our literacy background is so extensive and versatile, we understood the layers, depth, and culture of black and brown students and what it entailed to reach them in and outside of the classroom, which spurred For the Culture, Literacy Development. We wanted to have a platform for educators that didn’t exist, one that broadened instructional practices to include reaching marginalized voices with literature written and created by black and brown authors.
For The Culture, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We are a Literacy Consulting company made up of 3 Literacy Specialists with over 60 years of experience in reading and writing from elementary through secondary. We all met through education, being teachers at the same campus. We provide professional development to educators, write curricula for campuses, create novel units for various grade levels, and provide prescriptive consulting services. We are solution-oriented in regard to filling in the gaps for reading and writing via culturally relevant, highly engaging, and research-based instructional practices. We are unique from other consultants and professional development in that we offer companion texts that are both written and created by black and brown authors as a pairing, supplement, or substitute for classical traditional texts. Additionally, we provide several techniques on implementation, and we provide space to have rich discussions around the topic to ensure it is done with fidelity. We are most proud that we are For the Culture, Literacy Development. We are doing exactly what we set out to do and we are doing it well. We take pride in serving our community with compassion and excellence. We all provide different talents and strengths, all together it creates an uncompromising synergy that is authentically transferred in our training.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Monique Boone and Tamika Bartley met in their very first year of teaching, nearly 20 years ago. They not only worked on the same team and Reading Language Arts Department but they also were youth leaders for a community outreach in Humble, TX. Years later, Monique Boone and Melody Gerard also taught with one another at an all-boys school, Mickey Leland College Preparatory Academy, Once again, same content, same love for literacy, and the relationship blossomed from there. Ironically enough, Tamika Bartley and Melody Gerard were introduced in later promotions to Teacher Development Specialists and their working relationship grew. At the time, neither knew that they both knew Monique Boone. Soon after Monique Boone came into the Teacher Development Specialist fold. It was a unique circle that turned into an ongoing book club of 3. They constantly introduced and praised the works of new authors of color and their dynamic work that represented black and brown students. Soon thereafter, For the Culture, Literacy Development came to the forefront and is present and thriving.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
After spending months legitimizing our business, clarifying our focus and mission, and preparing our session, we held our first session in January 2020. The event was well-attended and well-received, and we began working on our next session to be held in March of that same year. We prepared a wonderful session that would show teachers how to prepare students for state assessments using culturally responsive practices and authentic texts from Latino authors. Little did we know that a global pandemic would bring our plans to a screeching halt. We did not want to lose our momentum, but it was hard to find the motivation to pivot when everyone was trying to establish a new normal. It was difficult, but we were undeterred. We registered to present at different virtual conferences and offered our services using virtual platforms. We even incorporated social media in our scope of literacy texts and practices because we understood that this form of communication would become a major conduit of information and pedagogy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.forthecultureliteracy.com
- Instagram: fortheculture_literacy
- Twitter: @FortheCultureL1
Image Credits
TRJ Services & Media LLC